Letter: No faith in Harrogate council leadership

It is staggering that the council leader, Richard Cooper, can brush-off so lightly a potential £50,000 overspend on the £85,000 budget for last month’s cycling event.

I am even less confident after reading the council spokesman’s comment that they don’t yet know how much of the extra £50,000 wasn’t spent.

Wallace Sampson, supporting Richard Cooper’s vanity project to relocate the council offices to a hugely expensive new building at Knapping Mount, says that relocation into a single building may provide a further reduction in staff costs; surely it is a matter of fact not conjecture? Presumably it is based on the same nonsense as the estimated saving of £85,000 spent on council workers walking between Crescent Gardens and Knapping Mount.

They must walk exceedingly slowly.

We know the council lacks the ability to budget accurately, or at least within 60 per cent based on its cycling event.

How can we trust its judgement on the council offices? Sadly we appear to have too many councillors who lack the spine (or are they just financially illiterate?) to challenge.

Denis Kaye

Malthouse Lane,

Burn Bridge

Knapping Mount